Paradox
by OXBastetXO
Summary: Jack's thought while he sorted out what Adam had done to Ianto in 02x05 Adam


Title: Paradox

Author: OXBastetXO

Rating: T  
Archive: Please ask first  
Status: complete  
Category: Angst/Drama  
Summary: Jack's thought while he sorted out what Adam had done to Ianto in 02x05 Adam  
Spoilers: Adam  
Sequel/Season: Season Two  
Authors Note: I'm going to blame this on Brit TV has rotted my brain. I am not a slasher and this is not a slash piece, but it just wouldn't let me go until I got it out. For religious and other issues, I don't do slash. This is my happy little AU where there is no wandering sexuality issues and everyone is just friend in a very dysfunctional way.

BBC owns all. I'm just borrowing them for a while, though I may keep a certain poor woobie Welshman and a flashy American Captain a bit longer.

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Paradox

By

OXBastetOX

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Jack Harkness stared at the crumpled form huddled on the metal stairs to the upper level. Ianto Jones stared off blankly, his red rimmed eyes welled with unshed tears. The emotional and psychic pain pouring off the young man grated on every one of Jack's nerves, screaming the wrongness of this situation.

Ianto was not a murderer. There was on way this poor, impossibly sweet, young man could be a murderer. Jack had known murderers, intimately. Ianto was not a murderer. He didn't care what the lie detector had said. Ianto was not a murderer. It was true he had seen Ianto kill, but killing protecting another being did not make you a killer.

Jack headed for Tosh's station. He qued up the CCTV and started back through the logs of the last few hours in the Hub. Something had to have happened. The Rift. Aliens. A psychotic break. Anything, but what Ianto had said.

"_I murdered three girls…I'm a monster."_ Ianto's words kept echoing through Jack's thoughts. The words were right, but the voice speaking them wasn't. Ianto had nearly choked in horror as the words had spilled out of him. Words that were not his own thoughts. Words like the script of horribly written play he had memorized. Jack's gut told him this was wrong and his gut was one thing Jack had learned to listen to.

He scrolled down through the logs of the feeds from several different cameras. Something caught his eye and he brought up the log. On the screen, he saw Ianto, his head arched back in pain and Adam's hand gripping his head. He inched the frames back to the beginning and stopped, hitting play. The scene that unfolded set his blood on fire. He knew mind control. He had seen it and felt it. The invasion of one's thoughts and memories was an act so intimate and personal that rape was the only term that came close to describing it. He swore hotly as he watched Adam clutching Ianto's temples in his hands. _"Remember it,"_ Adam kept repeating as Ianto cried out from the mental assault. He quickly worked through several other logs. Adam and Tosh. "Remember." Adam and Gwen. _"Remember."_ His mind quickly ran through his own memories and Adam's hand on his shoulder. _"Remember."_

Ianto sat on the steps in the shadows as Jack worked, hugging himself tightly. Jack turned,. "Come here," Jack said, stepping over to grab Ianto's arm.

"No," Ianto protested weakly as Jack pulled him over to the screen.

"Come here," Jack repeated, putting an arm around him to support him as he pulled him over to the screen. On the speakers, they could both hear Ianto's pained cries and Adam's harsh voice. "Just look. Look," Jack told Ianto, pointing at the black and white scene playing out on the screen again. He felt Ianto tremble in fear and revulsion as he watched himself on the screen, crying out under Adam's mental assault. He rubbed Ianto's shoulder grounding him as the reality and enormity of what had happened crashed over him. On the speakers, they could hear Ianto's pained gasps and cries as Adam repeated, _"Remember it. Remember it. Remember it,"_ over and over.

Jack gave Ianto a squeeze and then left go. He jogged back to the refrigerator Owen kept their blood samples in and grabbed the tray holding their vials and he dug through them quickly. "Where's Adam's blood sample?" he demanded looking through them again to make sure he hadn't missed it.

Ianto stared at him, hugging himself tightly again and worrying his lower lip with his teeth. He glanced back up towards the computers and then jogged up, sitting down on the station.

Jack shoved the tray back into the refrigerator and followed Ianto up. Ianto had pulled up Adam's personnel file. Jack leaned against the back of Ianto's chair.

"Everything seems to be in order here," Ianto told him, his attention more on the screen than Jack, grounding himself in the workings of the computer.

Jack glanced the information over. "When was it last updated?" he asked.

Ianto's fingers flew across the keyboard and he paused. "Twenty-four hours ago," he said, his voice catching a little.

Abruptly, the lights came up in the hub and Jack grabbed a file as Ianto jumped to his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets.

A large bouquet of flowers came bouncing down the steps and Owen peeked over them, suddenly looking embarrassed, but more from being caught with the flowers than from any thought of what Jack and Ianto had been doing. Ianto dashed off, as if on his way back to the Tourist Office cover and Owen ducked his head, heading to his station. Jack watched the both of them and struggled to keep up the mask of normalcy. Inside he was seething. No one did this to his people. No one did this to him. Adam, whatever he was going to pay.

He would deal with this paradox of the man they all knew who didn't exist and when he was done, he really was going to wish he didn't exist.


End file.
